Pages

May 2, 2008

MLB's Shameful Commercialization

Jere posted this morning about MLB's latest move in sticking commercials in every part of the game.

It has placed a movie ad in the May schedule of every single team (four random teams: Red Sox, Yankees, Pirates, Brewers). Is MLB that hard up for cash?

And, as Jere, points out, MLB has changed the color of the day to make the ad more visible -- which means it has designated home games as road games. So while the Boston is still playing May 22 at Fenway Park, MLB's official schedule now indicates the Red Sox are playing in Kansas City.

Jere:

They care more about making money than they do about telling you the key piece of information about one of the games.

When will MLB do something -- anything -- that will make me say, "Yes, MLB did the right thing."

Also: The Blue Jays broadcasts -- which I watched for the recent Red Sox series -- now have short car commercials in between batters. Batter X grounds out and before Batter Y steps in, the screen goes white and here comes the fucking commercial.

12 comments:

This is ridiculous! (Pepsi,"The Choice of a new generation.") Is nothing sacred anymore?! ("Who could ask for anything more, Toyota!) Can't we just enjoy something in it's purest form? (Boston Museum of Science. "It's fun to see what out what makes an ocean wave wave.) I'm completely distraught! ("We're the one for you New England, New England Telephone.")

When Buddy LeRoux bought the Sox (with Sullivan and Mrs. Yawkey), he was crucified for adding commercials in the midst of innings ("drop-in" ads) on the radio broadcasts. Now he looks like a rock-ribbed traditionalist by contrast, but honestly, after the foiled Spiderman-Logo-on-the-bases promo MLB nearly snuck in and the Coke bottles, how can we be surprised or shocked by anything?

Oh---I found the Sox bats while I was in Anchorage, and brought them back. They should warm up very soon....

What sucks more than anything is that news of the day in baseball is that whore Clemens and oddly placed ads.........When times are shitty these idiots just bring you down more and wonder how far in the shitter can we go as people.....

Can I get a puppy story or someones unselfish act of ramdom kindness...

Will be in Hard Hittin New Britan for the Rock Cats game for the annual Bunker Hill Sports Assoc. night complete with fireworks...too bad its 40 degrees and raining...

As shitty as this is, the schedule does say "@" and "vs" to denote home and away games. Yes, it should be colored but I'm assuming that's the kind of logic that was going through whoevers idea this was' head (in between the dollar signs roaring around his/her cranium).

Jack, go to a bike rental shop in Anchorage and see if the Far From Fenway Fan Club still exists. We stumbled on this guy when we were up there in 96. I can't even tell you the name of the store, but it's in downtown Anchorage. Shouldn't be too hard to find.

Did anyone happen to catch the fact that not only are they blatantly promoting Indiana Jones on the team schedules, but they have now included another little box with the letter 'H' in it. The box links directly to the Holiday Inn homepage. I understand the intentions of convenience, but this is a bit extreme and ridiculous.

Tim: you're right--and people who check the schedule daily and know exactly when the games are (in fact, I have tickets to THAT game), still know it's a home game.

But to the casual fan--these are the ones who really rely on this schedule to get the necessary info--they're going to be looking for red squares to see which are the home games. And once they see that it's white, even if they look closely and see "vs. KC"--well, that still doesn't say "at home vs. KC."

And even for me, if I'm glancing at some other team's schedule, and I want to know if they're home or away, I'm gonna think "white is away, (color) is home." And since that one with the ad is white, I might even think, Oh, they put "vs." but they must mean "@". The point is, they've risked fan confusion (on a very important piece of info!) to make sure the ad is in there.

And, of course, I'd still be just as pissed with the ad being there even without that possible confusion.

sugarshane: the "H" logo appeared a few days before the Indy ad. I thought that meant "hotels" as in, find a hotel if you're going to this game, kind of like the plane symbol that the Yanks started doing last year. But you're right, it does specifically mean "Holiday Inn." And come to think of it, I think the plane took you straight to Continental Airlines. At least these thing relate to the schedule: Here's a place to stay, here's a way to get there. But it's still shitty, especially that they'd only show ONE hotel/airline.